Vulture feeding stations, mad cows and wolves

Wednesday, October 06, 2004

Aragonese authorities have announced the setting-up of a network of feeding stations* for vultures and other carrion-eaters. The spread of mad cows disease into Spain means that, following EU rules, dead cows, sheep and goats can no longer be left in the countryside, and must be destroyed. This directly affects scavengers which rely on dead livestock for 60-100% of their diet.

SEO offered the following figures for scavenger raptors for the whole of Spain for 2001:

On the same subject, researchers have noted that wolf attacks on livestock are increasing for precisely the same reason: the most important part of the diet of many wolf packs is carrion (see Return of the Iberian wolf ). Occasional feeding stations in areas where carrion represents an important part of wolves' diet would seem a cheaper and less contentious alternative to compensating shepherds for animals killed. Wolves, like many carnivores, frequently get so excited by the blood and slaughter that they kill far more numbers of a flock than they need. In Spanish these attacks are known as lobadas . One study in Burgos showed an average of 7.6 sheep killed for every lobada , Although this is surely exceptional, the wolf is at times its own worse enemy.
See
http://www.fapas.es/lobos_y_mastines.htm

*known in Spanish as muladares (1) or simply buitreras.
1. defined in the DAE as a place where dung or household rubbish is thrown.
See my lammergeyer article here